Interference pattern and visibility of a Mott insulator

Fabrice Gerbier, Artur Widera, Simon Fölling, Olaf Mandel, Tatjana Gericke, and Immanuel Bloch
Phys. Rev. A 72, 053606 – Published 4 November 2005

Abstract

We analyze theoretically the experiment reported in [F. Gerbier et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 050404 (2005)]. There, the interference pattern produced by an expanding atomic cloud in the Mott insulator regime was observed, indicative of short-range coherence in the system. The latter was traced back to the presence of a small amount of particle-hole pairs in the insulating phase for finite lattice depths. We analyze the influence of these pairs on the interference pattern using a random phase approximation, and derive the corresponding visibility. We also account for the inhomogeneity inherent to atom traps in a local density approximation. The calculations reproduce the experimental observations, except for very large lattice depths. The deviation from the measurement in this range is attributed to the increasing importance of nonadiabatic effects.

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  • Received 4 July 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.053606

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Fabrice Gerbier, Artur Widera, Simon Fölling, Olaf Mandel, Tatjana Gericke, and Immanuel Bloch

  • Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, 55099 Mainz, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 72, Iss. 5 — November 2005

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